Help:Style guide

Please use this page to learn the naming and formatting conventions for pages on this wiki. Adhering to these rules will allow the wiki to stay consistent, improve search engine optimization (SEO), and be as accessible as possible for users. [Please also consult this guide to learn how to format content with Media Wiki Syntax.]

Creating Pages

Naming a Page

When creating pages, please try to create pages with titles that are descriptive, but also as short as possible; many search engines rank pages lower if URL titles are too long. For example, the title:

accessiblegaming.wiki/Blind_Accessible_Games

is much better than:

accessiblegaming.wiki/List_Of_Games_Accessible_For_Blind_Gamers

Formatting a URL

1. When creating a page, each word in the URL must have a space in it. For example:

accessiblegaming.wiki/blind accessible games

It may be tempting to write the URL as:

accessiblegaming.wiki/BlindAccessibleGames

in camel case for easier reading with screen reading software, but this actually makes it more difficult for search engines to parse. The reason we put spaces in the URL is because Media Wiki (the engine that runs the wiki) automatically replaces spaces in URLs with underscores. So regardless if a user types:

accessiblegaming.wikii/blind accessible games

or:

accessiblegaming.wiki/blind_accessible_games

it will load the same page.

2. Notice how all the words in the URL are lowercase. This is intentional because Media Wiki is case sensitive and automatically capitalizes the first word of a URL, while keeping the remaining lowercase. All URLs should be made with lowercase words unless they contain a proper noun, where then that noun can be capitalized. For example:

accessiblegaming.wiki/blind accessible Xbox games

The final URL will then look like:

accessiblegaming.wiki/Blind_accessible_Xbox_games

3. Please do not include special characters such as "#", "%", or "<>" in your titles. This will only make SEO worse and will also confuse Media Wiki. This also means you should not create pages with titles that have underscores in them. If a user types:

accessiblegaming.wiki/blind accessible games

or:

accessiblegaming.wiki/blind_accessible_games

they will both load the same page. If you create a page with underscores in it, then only the page with underscores will load and that same URL with spaces between the words will not load properly.

Namespaces

Namespaces allow us to divide content into more manageable sections. For example:

accessiblegaming.wiki/Blind/content creators

or:

accessiblegaming.wiki/Blind/accessible games

Namespaces should only ever be used if there are a large amount of pages that are directly relevant to each other. The reason we haven't used them yet is because we haven't reached that point and it results in more work for crawlers to index pages. So for now, it's not recommended.

Editing Pages

Proper Heading Structure

Proper heading structure is critical to maintain because not only do they help screen reader users navigate pages, but they also heavily increase SEO. For example, notice how on this page "Proper Heading Structure" is at heading level 3. This is because this topic directly relates to the topic of "Editing Pages". The headings under "Creating Pages" are also at level three because "Creating Pages" is at level two. "Creating Pages" is at level two because the title of the page will always be at heading level one; in this case the title would be "Style Guide". When editing pages, pay attention to how many equals signs surround a section and that will tell you what heading level it is.

Adding SEO Tags

While they don't impact search engines nearly as much as they use to, it's still a good idea to put SEO tags at the top of the page. This is what they would look like:

{{#seo: |title=Blind Accessible Games - Find, add, and rate blind accessible games. |description=A community-driven page for blind gamers to find accessible games. |keywords=List of all blind accessible games, blind accessible games list, blind accessible games, screen reader games, blind gaming list, blind accessibility mods, audio games, games with audio description }}

It's not the end of the world if you forget to put these, someone else will likely come along and add them at some point.

Links

External Links

When adding links to a page, please make sure you use the proper type of link. If you are linking to a page outside of the wiki, it's a good idea to make it a link that opens in a new tab. Here's how to do it:

[[https://www.youtube.com/ This link will open YouTube in another tab]]

And this is what it would look like when rendered:

This link will open YouTube in another tab

Internal Links

This is how you link to another page on the wiki:

[[Blind accessible games|Check out the blind accessible games list!]]

And here's how it would look:

Check out the blind accessible games list!

Keep in mind that the text before the | must match the URL of the page. This is another reason why we put spaces between the URLs when creating pages because it makes typing internal links easier.

Categories

Think of categories like hashtags. They are meant to be placed at the bottom of the page and users can click on them to list all pages that also have that category. They differ slightly from hashtags in taht you don't want to find every variation of a word, such as #BlindGaming, #BlindAccessibility, or BlindGaming. Instead, you want to find categories that you feel are the perfect match for the page. You can also type the word you're wanting to use in the search bar to see if it or a similar category exists. This is also another reason we use categories because they help searching from within the wiki. This is what it looks like to create a category:

[[Category:Blind]]

And then it will turn into this:

Important note: if you are using the Minerva Neue skin, categories may not show up as links. Minerva Neue is a mobile skin and I believe they aren't visible for that reason. You can change your skin in your account settings at the top of the page.

Moving Pages

Sometimes moving a page can be necessary for whatever reason. Here are the steps for moving a page and guidelines to follow:

To move a page:

1. Go to the page you want to move.
2. Click more near the top of the page and then click move.
3. You will be brought to a page with an edit box where you will type the new URL. You only need to type the end of the URL, not the https://www.accessiblegaming.wiki/. Remember to follow the URL conventions detailed previously on this page.
4. There will be a redirect checkbox you have the option to select. When selecting this, the old page will redirect to the new one when someone either click or types the old URL.

When to Use a Redirect

Generally, the only time you should use a redirect is when the page you are moving has been indexed by a search engine or if it is a popular page. If it is indexed by a search engine, meaning that it shows up in search results, a redirect will help the search engine to understand where the new page exists. If it is a popular page, a redirect will allow users to find the new page without breaking any links or methods they previously used to find that page. If a popular page is not redirected, then it will take much longer for people to learn where it is and search engines will take a long time to find, update, and rank the new page. To determine if a page redirected properly, you can type the URL to the old page and append: ?redirect=no to the end of the URL and if a redirect exists, you will see the old page that simply has a redirect to the new page.

If a page is new, has not been indexed by google, and is not popular, it's best to simply copy and paste the info from the old page to the new page and then delete the old page. This is purely for organizational purposes.